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38 Poems Under 100 Words

Bill Yarrow

38 POEMS UNDER 100 WORDS

  by

  Bill Yarrow

  TABLE OF CONTENTS:

  1.Excommunicado

  2.Bone Density

  3.Nan Sequiter

  4.Not That Kind of Pain

  5.Chapel Access

  6.A Journey of Seven Thousand Miles

  7.The Lost Boys

  8.Prowl Car

  9.Self Alaska

  10.Pain

  11.Son of Uncle Sam

  12.Cranshaw on a Boat

  13.The Rest Nowhere

  14.Bees in the Eaves

  15.Pink

  16.The Death of Sherwood Anderson

  17.Precipice of Questions

  18.The Tapeworm of Selfish Mammon Eats All the Goodwill in the World

  19.Julia

  20.A Piece of Him

  21.Ratatouille

  22.Before the Door

  23.Parabola Tango

  24.Sermon of Lilac

  25.In My Hometown

  26.Black Squirrel Poem

  27.Not Enough Sin to Go Around

  28.Anthropometamorphism

  29.Villon, Stop Following Me Around

  30.Abraham

  31.Bare Ruined Palace

  32.Holy Week

  33.Peterson Park

  34.Mad Love

  35.The Separation

  36.Kicking Out the Enjambs

  37.Not a Villanelle

  38.He Holds an Expired Visa and a Monday Grudge

  EXCOMMUNICADO

  1.  

  they tied him to a louver

  and piled up hickory sticks

  the flames gushed through the slats

  and then burned down the house

  not every punishment proceeds

  without a hitch

  2.  

  in walks the ghost with wireless hands

  the hacksaw complexion

  the jackoff heart

  Gabriel in a zebra suit

  3.  

  like a dog's first whiff of cinnamon

  integrity is confident

  it can annihilate perfidy

  4.  

  here's what can be glimpsed:

  a rose degraded to a thorn

  a man etherized on a couch

  all the hymns of Hymen sung to the music of crucifixes

  5.  

  the moon is our conscience

  we shall not wane

  99 words. This poem appears in Blasphemer (Lit Fest Press 2015).

  BONE DENSITY

  The Fauves are visiting. Come to redesign

  the patio, they have upstaged the heart.

  They have brought with them their own music

  and solemn gondoliers. Madame Fauve,

  with a twisted braid, is dancing. So is

  the decadence in the wall. I applaud

  the thoroughness of the measurers, but

  cannot sanction their pervasiveness.

  The Fauves must leave. Stat. I have an

  appointment with deadness at 3 PM.

  They say they understand, but I sense they don't.

  I have offended the sorcery of art. Ah, Art!

  Ah, Liquidity! On the bulkhead of the horizon,

  clouds collect, indifferently, like restaurant fish.

 

  98 words. This poem appears in Pointed Sentences (BlazeVOX 2012).

  NAN SEQUITER

  Nan couldn't follow. She was a leader

  by default. She'd organize the orphans, the

  waitresses, the paralegals, the instructional

  designers. Anywhere she saw a mob, she'd

  leap in and take control. Inherently coherent,

  there was no mess she couldn't manage,

  no chaos she couldn't tame. I met her

  in Manhattan and I became her greatest

  challenge, for I was recalcitrant to order,

  reason, logic and sense. She looked at me

  and saw someone ruined by lunacy, wrecked

  by recipe, consumed by juvenile nostalgia

  for a manufactured past. Well, that was

  twenty years ago. Now I only make sense. 

 

  98 words. A version of this poem appears in Pointed Sentences (BlazeVOX 2012).

  NOT THAT KIND OF PAIN

  What kind of pain is it? Stabbing? 

  Shooting? Throbbing? Tell me. Is it

  a radiating pain? Does it burn? Point

  to it. Is it a pain or more of an ache? 

  Does it feel muscular? Is it constant

  or occasional? How severe is it? Is it

  infrequent or recurring? When did it 

  start? What do you think you did? 

  Lift something? Move funny? Is it 

  relieved by exercise? Better lying down, 

  sitting, or standing? Does applied heat 

  make it better? What about ice? You 

  think maybe it could be stress related?

  No, different. A different kind of pain.

 

  98 words. This poem appears in Pointed Sentences (BlazeVOX 2012).

  CHAPEL ACCESS

  Every tunnel's a piercing, every road's a tattoo.

  The billboards are wrinkles, road signs are scars.

  Cranshaw said he saw eternity last night

  wearing a sarong and smoking a cigar.

  “You're full of it, Cranshaw,” I said

  and stared at the fraudulent broken line

  that stuttered in front of me. Madeleine

  in the back seat touched me on the neck.

  "Why so ornery?" she asked. "Why?  

  2008. 2009. 2010. That's why," I snarled.

  What was eating me? Continental drift. Urban

  sprawl. Cranshaw! His smarmy teeth and 

  mildew jitterbug. His checked suspenders 

  and dragonfly belt. 2011. Maybe everything.

 

  97 words. This poems appears in Incompertent Translations and Inept Haiku (Cervena Barva Press 2013).

  A JOURNEY OF SEVEN THOUSAND MILES

  I had studied the prohibitions carefully.

  We had been warned not to eat any raw

  fruit, but when I saw the bowl of apples

  that morning at breakfast, something

  ruinous came over me. Greedily, I grabbed

  an apple and cut it into fourths. The taste

  of what is denied us is sweet, and so are

  the careless acts that spell our doom. Love

  must have seemed so as it steamed out of

  the primitive soul. In the land of amorous

  gods who balance on bubbles of swift bliss

  it is the elephant who most knows about restraint.

 

  97 words. This poem appears in Pointed Sentences (BlazeVOX 2012).

  THE LOST BOYS

  They live in Colorado and Washington state,

  Alabama and the Carolinas. They squeak

  by on sad inheritances and pristine discards.

  Every day hurts, just a little, but not enough,

  so dreams billow in and smother ideas.

  Meanwhile, the body does its daily dance

  alone. It's a neutral life, frighteningly fun.

  One fills one's lungs with schadenfreude.

  Two finds the missile hidden in the boot.

  Tomorrow will be incandescent, but

  if it isn't, who will remember to regret?

  Day bleeds into day and eventually clots

  into a life. Remember what Eminem

  taught: let your longing be your GPS.

 

  97 words. This poem appears in Pointed Sentences (BlazeVOX 2012).
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  PROWL CAR

  They picked up Delmore for reverberation.

  I'm heading over to 23rd and Oregon

  to post the petty codicil for bail.

  Desiderius was busted for sawing off

  his ankle bracelet. I thought he knew

  better. I warned him. He wouldn't listen.

  They're rounding up the hyphenates.

  I texted Vargas-Llosa and Cabrera-Infante.

  Did you get a hold of Valle-Inclan?

  Chris? Found drunk in the street

  again. Talking smack to a Czech

  girl who said she knew him. Well...

  The moon's out over Miami. Mischief

  has marked the bone marauders for doom.

  Under every sparse tongue is a skeleton key.

 

  97 words. A version of this poem appears in Pointed Sentences (BlazeVOX 2012).

  SELF ALASKA

  "A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us."

                                                             —Franz Kafka

  Was there, he wondered, some parasite,

  some infiltrated germ, some totalitarian

  pest, asbestos fiber, cancerous

  particle, irradiated isotope, sliver

  of glass, peach pit, foam nugget,

  stray hair, impinged corpuscle,

  magnesium wad, metaphysical

  quill or arrant stalk moored in him,

  or what? Why was it so difficult to move

  toward anything? Was his will congealed?

  His doctor recommends an Arctic cruise.

  He travels to a frozen stream, a frozen

  lake, a frozen sea. He photographs the

  awesome ice. A glacier calves inside him. 

 

  96 words. The poem appears in Pointed Sentences (BlazeVOX 2012).

  PAIN

  I hold it in my hands as I might a tomato, 

  roll it across my palms, look for pale 

  imperfections, toss it in the air. 

  Its mute newness amuses me. 

  Without warning, it gathers to a greatness 

  and rescinds the amnesty of breathing. 

  It rockets across the corpse we are not yet,

  indicting the criminal skin. I become 

  a pachinko parlor, the ozone layer, 

  a desert fire. Everything I understand 

  is in danger. Even the mathematics 

  of eternity is in jeopardy. What's left 

  of salvation is covered in gelatin. 

  There's a buttered emptiness awaiting us. 

 

  95 words. This poem appears in Pointed Sentences (BlazeVOX 2012).

  SON OF UNCLE SAM

  He doesn't drink, but he has his 

  intoxications: strength, sugar, sleep,  

  sex, surprise. He's hooked on the pinball 

  excitements of adolescence. He's the one with 

  a moustache loitering on the monkey bars. He's the 

  one who just replaced the lifters on his Impala. He's the 

  one whose girlfriend needs a wholesale career overhaul. He 

  can see the future, but it's not a future that will come true. He 

  works with his hands, but that takes brains he tells his nephews.

  He's over forty and he still eats red meat. He's got sand in his socks.  

 

 

  95 words. This poem appears in Pointed Sentences (BlazeVOX 2012).

  CRANSHAW ON A BOAT

  We are floating on the Chain of Lakes

  eating Rice Crispies out of a bucket.

  The sun is a soft lozenge medicating

  a bright red sky. Water skiers hold

  onto their slackening ropes like love

  itself. On Party Island, the icy drunks

  have seized control. Cranshaw has

  his hand inside Margaret. No one

  is shocked; he was born brazen.

  But when he starts in on the Jews,

  Arnie gets mad and pushes him

  over the side. We let him tread water,

  then swing around to pick him up. Justice?

  Remorse? No, Margaret wants him back.

 

  94 words. A version of this poem appears in Incompetent Translations and Inept Haiku (Cervena Barva Press 2013) and The Vig of Love (Glass Lyre Press 2016).

  THE REST NOWHERE

  A screaming comes across the brain

  interrupted by a webbed memory:

  a man in brown with a rolling gait,

  stubbornly strong, a dull ghost

  (until spoken to), dusty and disgusting,

  squinting towards wisdom. He holds his

  candles upside down and ambulates toward

  the great chains of his being. Stethoscope,

  please! (Silence.) No pulse on the body's

  horizon. I know too much about delusion

  ever to be deceived. Love's funny that way. 

  When all else fails, look to the consolations 

  of misanthropy. Up ahead, there's a signpost; 

  down below, the rich ricochet of loss.

 

  93 words. A version of this poem appears in Pointed Sentences (BlazeVOX 2012).

  BEES IN THE EAVES

  We write in darkness. We love

  in alleys. We breathe into beige

  paper bags. Anything to mollify

  the confusion. Anything to simplify

  the math. I am beset, even by rest.

  And when I close my eyes, the world

  is still macaronic. I feel for the wolf

  about to be trapped in the landfill.

  I feel for the crab about to scamper 

  from the net. I feel for humanity when

  the brightness of sick knowledge falls